


(working title) soon there's a greater force to the breeze

by howsharry



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Age Difference, Case Fic, Folklore, Foreign Adventures, Slow Build, Slow Burn, but this one is going to be weird, except the one Ben produced himself, the german adventure fan fic nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howsharry/pseuds/howsharry
Summary: Peter is informed about his early release from the apprenticeship and when confronted with personal loss and an ever shifting perspective on what life with Nightingale might look like, makes a mistake. When things go even more pear-shaped at a crime scene and he is put on leave from police work, Peter goes rogue to look into dubious background mechanics of the situation himself - abroad!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently moved town to a place around 50 km from Ettersberg, in Germany. Let me take you on a wild ride through this WIP, traumatic memories of our beloved boys, get to know some new people and historical and cultural facts, a dramatic case and don't forget to put your seat belts on, it's the law. 
> 
> First Chapter will be somewhat of an introduction. It's all very roughly edited and English is not my first language.

When I came down for breakfast there was an grey envelope on my plate. It had Nightingale’s hand writing on it which was all sleek cursive letters that I recognized from hastily written notes and memos but he’d obviously taken more care to artistically paint my name with ink.  
“Is this my lunch money?”, I asked Nightingale who was watching me closely over his morning news paper. He looked alert even though we’d been out late for a pint with Guleed that had turned into four, which was basically a copper’s two.  
I took the envelope and opened the heavy paper carefully without waiting for an answer. An equally fine quality card board card was inside and I fished it out. I skimmed it quickly, then I sat down to let the information sink in.  
“You are inviting me to my own farewell?”  
Nightingale made a dismissive sound and folded up his papers in calm manner. “These are the invitation I am going to send out, with your approval.”  
I was more than a bit stunned and I told him so.  
“I know it’s earlier than you expected. But I think you had a good argument, we really do need more bodies.”  
I shook my head slowly, trying to shake off any rifts in the matrix. “What are you talking about?”  
“Last night”, Nightingale cleared his throat. His hands drifted in search of his coffee cup. “You made a point: we don’t have enough personnel for the tasks at hand, nor for the unforeseeable future. You said to make the Folly work more efficiently as a unit; there should be different departments with specialist, like there once were. I for one think you are perfectly right.”  
He seemed to be expecting me to be pleased by agreeing with me. My mouth became very dry suddenly, I grabbed a vase of water and drank straight from it, ignoring plenty of empty glasses Molly had provided. Nightingale eyed me critically.  
“I’ve had too much”, I muttered. “Yesterday, I don’t think I was being very rational about this.”  
“There’s no need to shy back now, Peter. You’re within a two-year radius of the traditional end of the apprenticeship, I don’t believe bending the rules would affront anyone.”  
I gulped and considered going back to my bed straight without another word. The slight hangover I felt when I woke up had now returned as a sledgehammer against my forehead thanks to this notice and being confronted with major life decisions this early in the morning is not one of my strengths anyway.  
“I told you I think I am ready to be a master, and you are saying ‘yes’?”, I asked, finally. I know it must habe sounded like an accusation, but I was seriously doubting my Governor was of sane mind right now.  
“Probationary Period”, Nightingale corrected. “You would technically have your own sovereignty within the Folly, more freedom in decision making.”  
“I almost never ask you when I make decision”, I intervened, stubbornly. Nightingale shot me a warning look.  
“And I’d be taking on another apprentice.”  
“Like who?”  
“I don’t know yet.”  
I groaned loudly. “That’s not what I wanted to say, I don’t even remember saying it.”  
He chuckled and took a sip of his coffee. “A pity. I still think it’s an excellent idea, you’ll take your time to think about it and then we’ll arrange for a date and a invitation list.”  
I searched in Nightingale’s eyes for some kind of sign that he was playing me for dumb, a major joke to set me up for my arrogance the night before or redirect me to my shortcomings in Latin, Greek or formulas. I didn’t find anything but excitement, which scared me even more. 

Don’t take me wrong: like any police officer I love an opportunity to rise up in rank. Even if theoretically I would still remain a Sergeant (which I’d only made a year ago), not being an apprentice any more should fill me with a sense of accomplishment and pride. And having so cleverly arranged all of this myself on a night out with my superior should have me shout it from the rooftops.  
But as life has gone on to turn me from kid dreaming of being an architect into a Police Constable and then transform my world completely by meeting Thomas Nightingale who promptly introduced me to the art and the world of magical reality these dreams of climbing up the ladder of social status and mobility have turned into a irrelevant game anyway. Free lodging and financial security certainly helped with that, I’m not going to lie.  
For 8 years I’d been an apprentice now, a wonderful and disturbing time especially since I hadn’t been the only one, originally. Lesley had turned on Nightingale, and literally shot me in the back with a tazer. Sometimes I still find myself wondering where she is and if I’d done the same to get my face back.  
From day one mine and Nightingale’s principal motive had been to catch the Faceless One, and in addition solve a hundred little mysteries indirectly connected to him. That being said, it does not include the day-to-day falcon business, the management of the Newtonian Network, supporting Dr. Walid’s thaumatogical research with our brain scans, explore the London underground and go on wild trips down the roads of ancient genius loci and maintain relations with all sorts of entities from the demi-monde.  
Of course on my part there was also the thing about learning a whole craft (art, Nightingale would chide me) that generations before me had been introduced to in their early childhood versus my late twenties, magic having been a integral part of their families’ history for ages. With which we have arrived at the most recent weight my shoulders had to bear. Historically speaking, I seldom get myself into fits of self-pity, but shortly after I’d made Sergeant my dad collapsed at his piano and didn’t get up any more. I was not surprised by his death - I’d known he was an addict and of poor health since I went to elementary - but I was shocked by how badly I handled it. I didn’t know the loss would be more than I could endure, and I wasn’t aware that you can survive more than you can bear.  
It was good to have an expert in grieving at hand, especially after the funeral. My mum holed up with her sisters, I buried myself in research and work until Nightingale put me on vacation. I hung out in the carriage house for couple days until he got wind of me using HOLMES. When I was forbidden any distractions I eventually broke down, sobbing in my room and shouting for my dead father without using my voice. Molly brought food that I wouldn’t touch, but nobody disturbed me until day three, when Nightingale rapped softly on my door, presumably having changed his mind and sending me back to work.  
He didn’t. The mess he found wouldn’t have been able to do a good deed anyway and it didn’t try to fake looking the part. I was rolled in blankets when he let himself in, eyes swollen and dry, I was in no state to be seen. My dad’s picture (an old shoot of him at a concert in his thirties) lay on the bed next to me, Nightingale took it and put it back on the desk before he sat down there with a solemn face. He didn’t talk for a while, just watched me. His naturally confident presence oozed into the room, pregnating the musky air with aftershave and orderliness. He touched my forehead for temperature, then my cheek.  
“I’d like you to eat something, Peter”, he’d said. I don’t think I answered. “You’ll feel a bit better.”  
I turned away from his hand because I didn’t think I could.  
“I know”, Nightingale whispered and shifted on the bedsheets. “I’m here.”  
After a while I decided to believe him.

Things got better eventually. A routine can be made manageable and everybody ensured this was the case for me. I started work again, worked harder on my Latin and my formulas than ever before actually to the point that Nightingale started praising me. I see where all this is coming from now.

I don’t like to think of Nightingale and myself as co-dependent but we are certainly under a magical contract that disables us from having separate lives. He’s sworn to protect me, I’m sworn to be careful with my magic and learn multiple dead languages. Nightingale’s very good at his part of the deal, I’m notoriously not. I’ve known him for eight years, starting with that fateful night at hook-up church, where he was certainly planning to take me home for the night even though he’d never admit and I for one am not keen to ask. Because then what? Our futures are woven together, we’ll stay colleagues for at least the rest of my life, since it’s going to last a lot shorter than his. Magical experimentation, recklessness and bad luck being the deciding factor that will eventually put me to the grave. I’d hate to imagine Nightingale as the one who bears my coffin, but if he doesn’t stop ageing backwards he’ll have excellent chances at that job. 

In conclusion: I am empirically proven not good with change is what I am trying to say here. I’ve never voluntarily spent a holiday farther than a hundred kilometres from London, and when I did I wanted to go back as soon as I arrived at the location. I’ve chosen a stable, ladder-stepping career initially. Couldn’t have expected the whole magic part, could I? 

And then there’s the part where everything collides, where highways become intersections and my mind loses track of traffic. Especially regarding my governor. We have an easy relationship, but it is not without pitfalls. I like having him as a teacher, as backup and occasionally as a person to crack a joke at and share some thoughts with. I’m not sure if these things are co-dependent, and I don’t know how to ask. Nightingale is an enigma. Hundred years and still running, despite facing human abysses I’d can only imagine. I know exactly enough about his personal history to decide that I’m not going to pry further. And still I enjoy it when he shares his memories with me, and with them his pain. And I do sometimes wish to be more his equal, to be his friend first and foremost, before any responsibilities and oaths that are not organic to our relationship. That’s what I must have told him at the pub, of course in a drunken but ensured non-homosexual way, and that’s where my repressed ass fucked up the first time.


	2. Chapter 2

“Who are you going to invite?”, I asked while Nightingale navigated the morning traffic swiftly. The jag could be a good place to be discussing these matters, I believed. No direct eye contact needed to be made, no awkwardness ensued and Nightingale - who was concentrating on the road - didn’t listen into my pauses as much.  
“The usual suspects”, he said grimly. I've broached the topic a couple times now and I can tell he doesn't like the way it’s affecting my brain at work. “You shouldn’t worry.”  
“Am not”, I lied.   
“I need you to be focused when we reach the house, Peter. Besides, it’s only going to be people who have a reasonable interest in your graduation. Everyone we have agreements with, basically.”  
I sunk further down in my seat, watching out the side window of the Jag and faking a sudden interest in the urban town houses which all looked the same. The list of agreements was endless, I think neither I nor Nightingale knew it by heart.   
“I’m not sure you are understanding why this is a vital part of ending you apprenticeship”, Nightingale kept on talking, hesitantly. “Nobody’s judging you, it merely a matter of me...showing you off.”  
I caught his glance and held it steadily without giving away what I was thinking, which was, yet again, more of an educated guess than a real interpretation.  
“Why?”, was my subsequent question.  
Nightingale’s eyes were back on the road: he accelerated, shifted gear and smoothly overtook a Honda.   
“Because I am proud of what you've become. And the part I had in that.”

We arrived at the given address mere minutes later. It wasn’t the kind I had stared so longingly at earlier but a slightly different model with an actual front-yard, an elongated, pointy roof and north-facing windows, unfortunately. Guleed had flagged the case for us in the HOLMES data-base and I’ve informed my senior officer about the child abduction which had happened in Newham. We were here to sniff the place out for potential vestigium, conspicuous victims and or hints of demi-monde activity. Child abductions happen all the time, most of them turn out to be administrative mistakes: the nanny waits for the parents to come back from a night out, or even a holiday, and when nobody comes home, she decides to take the little brat and at least sit it out at her own place where there’s homework, a partner or even a dog waiting for her. Meanwhile the parents, temporarily ridden from the burden or child-rearing, get pissed drunk, lose or ignore their phones and eventually come home to an empty flat. It happens more often than you think and people are notoriously stupid - before and after childbirth. Sometimes though, there is an actual kidnapping - maybe an ex-partner crazy with jealousy - and the inquiry can lead to a seriously awesome chase. In mine and Nightingale’s case we’d of course take the Jaguar, so I secretly kind of hoped we would be getting a uncanny whiff at least.   
Seriously though it is always more enjoyable when children are kept out of police work. When they end up as the victims of crime they can have a depressing effect on everyone involved. I still have nightmares about that first case me, Leslie and Nightingale investigated: the Cooperfield’s dead newborn flat on the lawn, dropped from the second story of their house.  
While we were waiting for the door to open, at least a hundred police officers from various departments within the MET were scanning the neighborhood, taking witness statements and yelling at their dogs in hope of finding a trace. Guleed had flagged us down quite late in the investigation, firstly because of how desperate the officers involved had become and mainly because she’d found an interesting note in the couple’s file.   
On the 3rd of October 2010, Mrs Olivia Smith had given birth to a baby boy with an extra chromosome. Nothing special so far, except that a couple months later when visiting her family in Cornwall, Mr. Smith checked on the newborn late at night to find the crib empty. They searched Mrs. Smith’s parent’s house thoroughly and, as a last resort to calling the police, the garden and the outer perimeter of her parent’s property. An surprisingly: where a small creek divided their land from a field, they found the small body of their son. Perfectly healthy, perfectly ‘normal’ as Mrs. Smith would later describe him to us.  
We didn’t start asking any of the hard questions until after we introduced ourselves, were invited in and seated in the living room. Mr. Smith, who’d opened the door, sat down in an armchair opposite to his wife, which left me and Nightingale to share the small couch.   
“I must have been sleepwalking”, Mrs. Smith chuckled when Nightingale asked her to recall that particular evening. She seemed almost delighted to get asked a question varying from the one MET officers must have been bombarding her with in the last three days. “Tom found him at the bank, safe and sound and wide awake.”  
“You must have been surprised”, I said to her husband.  
Tom Smith had his arms crossed in front of his chest. I felt a bit of tension in the room, but it wasn’t directed against us. “More than that, it was a wonder!”, he said grimly. “But you don’t look a gifted house in the mouth, do you?”  
“I knew the doctors were lying to us”, Olivia Smith intervened. “From day one! Tom and I are perfectly healthy, how could we be having a deformed child? Peter was ugly from the start, but I guess he grew out of it and a couple months into life he was just perfect.”  
I felt Nightingale shifting next to me, although his voice stayed neutral when he spoke.   
“Did you find any traces that night, maybe of an intruder to your home? Did something - how do you say - smell weird to you?”  
I knew exactly that he wasn’t speaking in pictures but describing what we practitioners call: vestigium, or the impression left by a magic spell.  
“No”, Olivia Smith said, “as I said, I had probably been sleepwalking.” She said it proudly, as if her nightly unconscious walk hadn’t put her child in danger but instead she’d accomplished her son’s transformation all by herself. I began to suspect there might have been some sort of glamour in play.  
“I felt very happy”, Tom Smith recalled, his voice smaller and more frail than before. “Everything smelled of summer and the forest when I picked him up, like baby wipes.” Mr Smith excused himself to another room and we heard him stifle a sob as he left.  
Nightingale shot me a look which meant he was going to share his thoughts with me in the car once we’d wrapped this up.  
“That will be all, Mrs. Smith.” I stood to shake her hand.  
“Which division are you lads again”, she asked. “I’m loosing track.” She was even younger than me, thirty-two according to her file, and impossibly younger than my governor. Judging by her obliviousness of this fact, I categorized her as somewhere other than the middle on the neurotypical spectrum, just clinging onto the edge of ‘normal’, as she’d describe it.   
“We are Economic and Special Crime”, I said, and briefly explained to her what that entailed, officially of course.   
“Do you think my Peter might have been taken by migrants?”  
Nightingale cleared his throat behind me. “We’ve no indicators that you’re son has become a victim of human trafficking, madam”, he said in his most posh, clipped voice. “Sergeant Grant and I are meant to be going and continue the investigation, thank you for your help.”  
With that he practically pulled me from the living room and only let go of my arm when we’d passed the door step. In the Jag, I recalled the husband’s description.   
“Forest and summer and baby wipes”, I said, “how’s that for a signare?”  
“It’s not”, Nightingale said, putting the car in gear. “What an awful lady”, he muttered.   
“Let’s hope we find little Peter and she can get over her....views”, I said wryly.   
Nightingale looked me over.   
“What?”, I asked.  
“I don’t think little Peter is to be found”, he said, a second too late. “He might not be in this world any more. Can you arrange a meeting with Postmartin, please? He should check his library for ‘changelings’.”  
“We don’t have to call him little Peter, do we?”, I asked as I pulled out my phone and looked through the contacts. “What’s a changeling?”  
“A substitute. Non-human, but looking just perfectly alike. Except in this case free of any disability.”  
“So whoever was doing the exchange left the impression on Mr. Smith? So why didn’t it happen this time? They reported the boy missing in the middle of the night, again.”  
“We can’t be sure, but we should check with Postmartin in any case”, Nightingale said. “Mr. Smith might just been emotionally confused. I certainly would have been.”  
“If you’d lost your little Peter”, I couldn’t help but add.   
Nightingale smiled and, abruptly, took a late left turn which had me smash my head against the window.

Postmartin was free to see us on Thursday, which meant after we searched the Folly’s library for literature on changelings and found nothing, we put the investigation on halt for the next couple days.   
In lack of police assignments and with the deadline ahead I was working on my forms throughout the day and collapsed in the coach house after dinner. Late in the evening, Nightingale found me there and joined me in front of the television.   
He eyed the program I’d chosen critically until checked if Rugby was on, which there wasn’t. Finally we settled for a late night political drama that neither of us understood nor cared too much about.   
“I don’t think I can master the sixth form before fall”, I muttered into the space between us. If there were a way to constantly practice without risking overdoing it and causing myself a cauliflower brain I might have a chance. But in this reality, I was going to end my apprenticeship a half-cooked practitioner. It wasn't exactly how I imagine.   
Nightingale was quiet, contemplating. When he turned around I felt strangely self-conscious and I couldn't determine why. Nightingale reached out and put his hand on my calve, pressed it, then turned back and let his head sink in the cushion, obviously not in the mood for this particular conversation.  
“It’s going to be alright”, he muttered. “There’ll be plenty of opportunity to learn, later on.”  
His hand never left my calve and when I woke up the next morning, still sprawled out on the couch, he wasn't there. 

Instead, Nightingale was waiting at the breakfast table and reading the morning newspaper. I stopped when I entered the room, absentmindedly watching him until he looked up.  
“Is something wrong?”, he asked. I didn’t know where to start really, or whether I should put it into words at all, so told him no and sat down.  
I wasn’t hungry much, but I knew I’d regret not having eaten now at a later time, so I filled my plate with toast and eggs and spicy beans and dug in, suddenly happy to have something to do other than staring at my governor.  
“Your mother called”, my Inspector informed me.   
“What she say?”, I asked around a mouthful of toast.  
“Grammar”, Nightingale chided me. This habit of his would never fade, I was sure. “She asked me to let you know she’s boarding her flight in a couple hours.”  
My fork made a shrill noise when it his the porcelain.   
“Fuck”, I said, “I forgot.”  
“I’m sure she will understand”, Nightingale said hesitantly.   
“That’s not how the whole parent thing works”, I said. At least not for me, I added for myself. I put my knife down and wiped my mouth with the hem of my shirt, my mind breaking the surface of its wooziness. I had to get a move on.  
“I could drive you”, Nightingale offered, observant as ever, “we can still make it to Heathrow in time, if you wish to tell her goodbye.”  
“That’d be grant”, I said and rose in order to run upstairs and get my stuff.  
“Peter”, Nightingale called before I’d reached the door. I turned around, he was smiling faintly. “Change your shirt, will you?”

We arrived at Heathrow within a spectacular thirty minutes and wasted a good thirty more to find the right gate. My mum was still in the queue, having her documents controlled right the moment we came jogging around the corner. While we waited for her to be checked in, I turned to Nightingale, whose face was pleasantly flushed. He was watching me too with quiet concern.  
“She might not come back, you know”, I told him in a low voice. “With my dad being gone and all.”  
Nightingale’s brows rose slightly. “She’s moving back?”  
I shrugged. “Her aunt still has a house there, and she’s old. Maybe mum will be a caretaker, at least for some time.”  
My mother split from the line and strolled towards the gate, saw us and diverted her course with a smile plastered on her face. You couldn’t tell easily, but she looked worn out. I believed that being back in Sierra Leone surrounded by her family would be good for her, I just wished it wasn’t that far away.   
“You made it, son”, she said and pulled me into her arms. Then she hugged Nightingale who was too surprised to fumble around with formalities even if my mother had left any room for it. There was a number of tasks I had to perform during her absence which she needed to inform me about: water the flowers, empty the mail and finally sell some of my dad’s instruments, which I would never do - there was enough storage space in the Folly.  
“You better look after him for some time”, she instructed Nightingale, finally. “Young boy that he is, not ready for the world.” She looked at me with pain in her eyes and I became painfully aware of the positives of looking nothing like my father.   
“You call me when you land, alright?”, I said to her.  
“It’s just a vacation”, my mum said, which wasn’t an answer but a statement. I doubted she was telling the truth.   
I hugged her again and then the remaining half of my parental unit stepped through the gate and vanished. I did not become aware I had turned into stone until I felt Nightingale’s hand on the small of my back and heard him talking softly, suggesting something about a pub and a continued breakfast. I let him guide me out through the jungle of travellers and stranded tourists and back to the parking lot.


End file.
